This invention relates in general to magnetic storage media and in particular to protection of information stored on such media against alternation.
The need to protect electronically stored data against erasure is critical. Current permanent magnetic storage media such as floppy disks are capable of storing from 90,000 to 1,000,000 charactes on a single disk. Information inadvertently erased from a disk is often costly or impossible to recreate or replace.
A floppy disk comprises a flat circular plastic web coated with a surface able to retain a magnetic pattern. The disk is protected from dust and other contaminants by square, flat plastic containers. These containers have one or more notches in their edges which are utilized to indicate the desired protection (read/write) status of the magnetic disk.
Electronic and magnetic information storage devices utilize a switch mechanism directed toward the notch to determine whether the notch is covered or uncovered and thus to determine the write/protect status of the floppy disk. At the present time it is customary to cover these notches with a strip of opaque adhesive paper or plastic to indicate a user's desire to protect any information stored on the disk. The attached adhesive strip prevents an actuator lever of the switch mechanism from traversing the notch in the floppy disk container, the resulting state of the switch mechanism serving to signal the data protection status of the information on the disk.
Because the protection of data is so critical, the adhesive strips used to cover the write/protect notch are made to adhere strongly to the edge of the floppy disk. The strong adhesive properties of these strips creates problems, however, when a user desires to add data to a protected floppy disk. Such an addition requires removal (or sometimes application) of the adhesive strip so that the switch of the storage device can be triggered so as to indicate a change in the data protection status of the disk. Because the adhesive strip attaches so strongly to the floppy disk, the strip is often damaged or destroyed during its removal. Furthermore, these adhesive strips are often reused despite their damaged condition because they are of such shape and adhesive quality as to not be readily available. No more than two or three adhesive strips are sold with each floppy disk.
The reuse of damaged adhesive strips can lead to damage to both the floppy disk and the floppy disk drive. Such damage results when a damaged adhesive strip peels off of the floppy disk during the insertion or removal thereof from a disk drive, allowing possible inadvertent erasure of data thought to be protected or causing damage to the disk drive unit itself.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved data protection device which eliminates the problems inherent in the presently used adhesive strips.
A more particular object of the present invention is to provide such a device which is easily applied and easily removed from a floppy disk container, thereby facilitating the protection of valuable data.
Another particular object of the present invention is to provide such a device capable of being reused many times.